I am officially wiped out.

Today I cooked:
-(real, from scratch) Strawberry oatmeal
-grilled cheese sandwiches
-hummus (and I burned the damned sesame seeds so the tahini is too strong...)
-steak fingers with butternut squash macaroni and cheese, which is very good and I highly reccomend.

The rain stopped long enough for us to walk up to Winn Dixie. I wore Isaac in the Kozy for the first time in quite a long time. He was LOVING it, grinning and leaning his head on me and laughing about everything. He seemed so...sane...and rational.

He is also HEAVY. And his feet bounce off of my thighs while his face is at head level. And my back is killing me from pushing the double stroller the whole way home with Aaron and Jake in it while wearing Isaac.

But it was worth it. He told me he loved me, even. And just...I don't know, seemed calm.

We also layed on the couch tonight long enough for both of us to doze off while he nursed, and that was also nice. I almost didn't want to hit him with a tranquilizer dart at all today...


Aaron woke up with a big swollen lymph node on the left side of his face. He has had both of them like that before, but it's been a year or two. He announced to me upon waking that he had a cavity, that I thought was actually a cold sore and then an ear infection based on his descriptions - but as the day wore on and the swelling popped out, it was obvious that it was that lymph node. He had mumps (despite being vaccinated for it) when he was 3 and it looks like that, but only on one side.

By evening it had finally worn down to being barely noticeable and he seemed fine, but he fell asleep much easier than usual - about 5-10 minutes of me smoothing his hair back from his forehead and talking to him. Light fever, too. He always wants to sleep in the sleeping bag he got at his party, now. I have to zip him into it, and then he says he is a caterpillar.

Ealier in the morning I very, very gently stroked the swollen place for awhile, like barely making contact with my fingers, and he just sat there grinning ear to ear with his eyes closed like it was complete bliss.


After all my boys were sleeping tonight, I spent awhile up on the top bunk with Ananda. She told me about how she woke up with blood coming out of her nose a week or two ago when she had a cold and had been picking at her nose that day - just how it had startled her because she thought it was just snot but then there was blood all over and it made her panic at first, thinking she was hurt. I told her about how I got hit in the face with a volleyball when I was her age, and then my nose bled constantly for years - 11 years. It didn't stop until right before I got pregnant with her. And I realized that was "her age" - I feel 6 so often, I have SO MANY MEMORIES of being 6 years old, it was such a pivotal time in my life. That's when my parents got divorced and I was in school and...it's like I realized she's that age now. I really remember what it feels like, to be that age.

We talked about periods. She knows about periods because she follows me into the bathroom - "Bye blood!" as I flushed the toilet was one of the first phrases she ever said - but I told her how it was when I first got it at 10, and wasn't expecting it. That whole "seeing blood and thinking you're hurt" thing, when really nothing is wrong. And we laughed together about Nana crying and wooping and saying "You're becoming a woman!" to me, and she was wondering aloud how old she would be, before she "got it". I have an aunt who was 9, and an aunt (her sister, same family) who was 16.

Grant gave her drawing challenges for part of the afternoon. A train, an apple, a bike. Everytime she did something extra. The apple had a little leaf stuck on a stem, and a worm crawling out of it. The train had a scenic background including snow-capped mountains. The bike had a guy with a helmet on riding it on a sidewalk, with a sun and clouds in the sky.


Jake is ACHING to walk. He stands independantly for a second or two half a dozen times a day now. He had taken 1-2 steps on his own 5 different times over the past two weeks. I can tell he's fed up, he always chooses creeping along something over crawling, now.

And he hates to be wet. Everytime he pees I discover he's suddenly naked, and then find the wet diaper somewhere behind him. This would irritate me if he didn't have such an adorable fat butt, and if he didn't always light up smiling when he sees me. As it is I'm generally overjoyed with his nakedness, even when it results in poop on the floor.



Grant and I have been talking about "more kids". I am at a point where my unspoken assumptions have been that once we are either moved out of here or Grant Sr is, and I've gotten some abdominal tone back, I would like to get pregnant again and have a homebirth. I've gotten pretty comfortable with it. He is at a point where he is ready for these kids to get bigger so we can have our bed back, go out sometimes by ourselves, just generally not have to ALWAYS be on duty the way we are now. We talked it out, though, and I think we both feel comfortable with how much leeway "a couple of years" gives us to know how we feel. He acknowledges that he could just need a break from baby and toddlerdom, and I acknowledge that I could really get used to not being pregnant or having to keep little people out of the fridge everytime I open it. We've both been through about every possible way of feeling towards the idea of another baby, since Jake was born in such an anticlimactic and scary way.

Perhaps I am just a masochist because, really, I have a lot of personal goals (weight loss, writing, crafting) right now, and I'm really too strained and worn thin to even be able to work towards them most of the time.

I give this day an A-

This morning, after going to bed far too late, I awoke to the bleary, far off sound of knocking. "I think someone's knocking on the door", I mumbled to Grant. It woke up Jake, so I latched him on and he dozed back off. "Hey, Grant, I think someone is knocking at the door!"

Grant came back a minute later and said, "It's your mom", fumbling around for a shirt. My mom. My mom who lives 400 miles north of us. She was driving my grandfather back home to Key West (150 miles south of us) over the weekend and stopped in as a surprise.

The house was TRASHED. Like worse than it's been in weeks. Grant Sr is out of town for the week and we are stuck inside due to van troubles and terrential rain, so it got kind of bad yesterday and whatever, it always happens like that, I can keep the house amazingly clean for days and as soon as it falls apart someone drops in. She said Laura and Frank (my sister and her husband) were on there way over because she'd called them ahead of time. Laura and Frank are total neatfreaks, Frank has said he "doesn't feel comfortable" here just because it doesn't have a "nice smell" - like it doesn't smell bad to him, but he's used to being hit with cleaning product or scented candle or whatever when he gets home so this seems lacking(?). So I ran around half asleep folding up the stroller and putting it away, getting all the blocks back in the chest and pushing it back under the bench, etc etc while Grant cleared and scrubbed the dining table (it was covered in art supplies) and went to get dishwasher detergent, which we'd discovered we were out of right before bed (when we usually start the dishwasher for the third time in a day...)

I felt unduly irritated with my mother for waking us all up, coming unannounced when the house was such a mess (and inviting my sister), and then immediately insulting me twice in the span of 10 minutes. "I don't want to offend you, but...is there something you're not telling me?", she asked, motioning to my belly. It's bloated because I'm about to start my period, which is also no doubt part of why she was irritating me. Then she kept going on about how Jake, who has a cold and was crawling around rapidly and panting while congested, "Breathes just like I do/got it from me." WHATEVER MOM. She was here for about an hour, my sister for about 30 minutes.

Aaron woke up with his left cheek all swollen up again, this time with faint discoloration. If it persists tomorrow I'm taking him to the doctor. It doesn't seem to be interfering with his eating or hearing, but it's VERY tender to the touch. He's had a normal level of energy, but is much more emotionally sensitive.

Aaaaaanyway. They left, at least the house was a lot cleaner from G and I doing a rapid double team on it. Grant helped me get the babies down for naps and then -

Annie, Aaron and I looked at Edward Gorey drawings in a book I have, sprawled out on the living room rug, drew with colored pencils and painted our toenails. Sometimes it's a lot of fun having big kids, and it's always really relaxing when the babies sleep for awhile.

Ananda did a lot more drawing today. A penguin king with an ice castle, geishas near a river. She is in turbo art mode. I love the things she makes.

Grant's cousin Bethany came over to do laundry in the afternoon, and stayed through evening. She's really weird, in some ways - like she speaks in a halting, cultivated psuedo Hialleah latina gangsta dialect despite being the whitest thing since saltine crackers and talking normally until high school - but I also discovered she is nice in a lot of ways, too. She works at The Gap, and brought clothes for all of the kids. I boycott the Gap personally, but whatever, she was sweet to think of us and it's all nice stuff. The shirt for Isaac especially is the perfect shade fo blue to make his eyes pop, and she knew just from seeing him here and there over the years that Aaron would want stripes. It's strange to be around someone only a couple of years younger than me (she's in college) who seems SO MUCH YOUNGER - she is living out on her own (in a dorm situation) for the first time in her life, bragging about making dinner out of a box for herself and asking us how to use the washing machine. With all of our kids running around. I remember when we used to jump on the neighbors' trampoline for hours together when she was 11 and Grant and I were 14. I showed her all her other cousins' Myspace pages because she didn't know about them, and she asked me to teach her to sew next weekend. She french braided Ananda's hair.

Ananda is so painfully shy that I think people are starting to find it really jarring and somehow WRONG. Like, when I got out the dress Bethany brought her, she just got really downcast and looked the other way. When I said, "Come on honey, just say Thank You, isn't this nice?" she hid behind me, clinging to my leg. Within 30 minutes they were in the backyard alone together setting up soccer goals, but her initial reaction to just about anyone is like that...

We went across the street to Aracelia's house (my nice elderly cuban neighbor who reminds me of my grandparents), and Aracelia said Hi and she did the same thing. Downcast, uber serious face, hiding and clinging - when Aracelia started walking around me and persuing the "How are you? Do you help your mom?" stuff she was going around me in circles, holding on with both hands and making these sad, frantic little groans. Yet, she was openly talking to Isaac and walking around her yard with him within less than a minute of that and came with us, into the house and around the back to see Aracelia's chicken coop and gardens. When Aracelia offered her a piece of chocolate, she took it and said Thanks, albeit nearly inaudibly.

I know that people who don't know us well and encounter this think it's because of being homeschooled, but really, Ananda has been like this since infancy and gets plenty of socialization. Now that she's 6, though, I'm starting to wonder if there comes a point when "acting that way" is just unnacceptably innapropriate - I've tried to explain to her when we're alone, since she is SO SMART, that it makes people either think she's really rude and mean or that she's immature, but I think that just makes her feel more pressured and then she gets even more strained with introductions and strangers...

Speaking of Aracelia, she speaks "spanglish", i.e., "I love food, pero no quiero uh, uh, bro-coli, por es too much por me - throat, I have the problems of eh, eh - esophagus y el operacion I have last year means no mas, nada con, uh...hard" etc And she is very much influenced by and steeped in cuban culture ("I don't hate all Mexicans, I knew a nice Mexican once...") The point is that due to age, language and generational barriers I "let her slide" with comments that would TOTALLY not fly from someone young, fluent and more educated. Today she commented THREE times on what a big butt Ananda has (she so does not, btw)...I think the only reason I didn't make a bigger deal than disagreeing is that Ananda can barely understand a word she says anyway. But geez. Also as I was walking out, she grabbed me by the arm and pleaded with me to please, please not have any more kids. *sigh* She gave Isaac bananas, picked flowers for us and let them collect fresh eggs, she really does not mean harm or offense in any way. It's hard to explain, or justify, or whatever.

I made "no peaking in the crock pot chicken and rice" tonight for dinner, with corn on the cob. We ate on a sheet in the front yard, and then Grant and Aaron took a bike ride. Later I had them all help me make chocolate pudding for dessert. I did a double batch so I could do pudding pops for tea tomorrow afternoon, too.

Also I dug out these wool shorts I made custom for boxcarbecca/ididntso last Fall. She dissapeared from the internet for months and hasn't responded to my questions about whether she still wants them or not. I have some ideas for a different package I could put together for her...Anyway I put a drawstring in the shorts and tried them on Isaac, but they're kind of big so I think I'll put them up for sale, if she is still not interested (really I think Eli has either outgrown them or potty trained by now). They're organic wool that I dyed with blueberries and kool-aid, and brand new. Just extra large. I think I could easily get $60+ for them, as they cost me a good $30 in materials to make and took MANY hours, between the dyeing, re-dyeing and the crocheting.

Isaac's been out since 9:30, Jake is so adorable I could die, and A and A are now waiting for me in their beds. So off I go to tell stories and snuggle.